I’ve always been at least a little dubious of Nicholas Negroponte’s plan to distribute low-cost laptops to the children of the developing world. I don’t doubt Negroponte’s sincerity; I think he really does believe he’s on a mission to help educate the huddled masses and bridge the global digital divide. However, the idea that technology can educate students in and of itself is a controversial one, and it’s been argued more than once that what these students really need are more teachers, classrooms and books; the basics of education, rather than the trappings of technology. As fellow Engadget alum Cyrus Farivar points out:

Negroponte’s plan to heal the world with laptops is well-meaning but fundamentally flawed. What good is a laptop in the middle of rural Thailand when electricity, much less Internet access, are spotty at best? Rather than getting laptops into the hands of every schoolchild across the world, why not start with an intermediate step? Probably because One Blackboard per Child or One Teacher per Classroom just doesn’t sound as sexy.

Then, of course, there’s the issue of money. It’s a finite resource, and for every $200 spent buying a laptop for a child, that’s $200 that can’t be spent on food, potable water or medicines. While other high-profile projects designed to help the developing world aren’t without their flaws (Bono’s Red, accused of having too-high administrative costs, comes to mind), they at least focus on the basics of food, shelter and health. That said, I’m willing to give Negroponte the benefit of the doubt—and $400 of my money, so I can buy one laptop for the developing world and one for myself. If his project flops, I’ll still have my laptop, which will either end up as a collector’s item or eBay detrius. While I’m at it, though, I’ll go ahead and send Oxfam a few bucks as well. My money’s as finite as anyone’s, but I’m not willing to make this a zero-sum game.

As a former employee, sometime source and Type 1 shooter, I’m a little disappointed that AOL has killed the Weblogs Inc. Diabetes Blog. While I have no doubt that the shuttering was done for purely economic reasons, I can’t help but think that the blog could have thrived with a little more effort. After all, as AOL founder Steve Case knows, health is one of the hottest areas on the web. The good news is that, while AOL may not have any idea how to serve/make money from the db community, others have stepped in to fill the gap. In the past couple of weeks alone, new blogs were launched by diabetes megasite dLife and the nonprofit American Association of Diabetes Educators. So, yeah, I’m sorry to see The Diabetes Blog go. But I won’t miss it a whole lot, given the plethora of other resources out there.

I didn’t get to see the 40th anniversary concert staging of “Hair” this weekend. From the early reviews I’ve read so far, it sounds like it was a great production, and the seven-hour wait for tickets doesn’t seem excessive by Delacorte standards. Still, I’m not that depressed about missing the show. After all, I saw the original—and was kinda, sorta, almost in the movie. The original production of Hair was the first Broadway show I ever saw, back in 1969 or 1970 (I know I didn’t see it in ‘67 or ‘68, because I distinctly remember discussing the lyrics to “Initials” with my parents, and being told that “RMN” stood for Richard M. Nixon). And the cast recording was one of the first records I owned. I listened to it over and over, memorizing the lyrics—or what I thought were the lyrics. Childhood mondegreens still pop up, unbidden, whenever I listen to that album, my personal favorite being my interpretation of the line “I got headaches and toothaches and bad times too, like you” in “I Got Life,” as “bad times to like you.” Misheard or not, the music of Hair was an important part of the backdrop to my early years, and many of the show’s songs trigger Proust-like recollections of childhood (I still get a chill every time I hear “The Flesh Failures”—and not just because the cast stripped nude at the end of the song).

While I have nothing but fond memories of the original Broadway production, I can’t say the same about Milos Forman’s 1979 movie version. For one thing, I’m not in it. Back when the film was being shot, there was an open call for extras to come to Central Park and portray hippies. I showed up, in my long hair, bell bottoms and gauzy shirt, and hung around hoping to be immortalized. Alas, my scenes were relegated to the proverbial cutting room floor (or worse; I don’t even know if the camera was ever pointed in my direction). But it’s not just the poor casting decisions that made the movie a disappointment. If the play was an exuberant, sloppy, in-your-face, real-time celebration of the 60s, the movie was more like, as London’s Time Out said, “a National Lampoon parody of some ghastly Swinging Sixties compendium.” Variety also got it right, commenting that “the spirit and elan that captivated the Vietnam protest era are long gone, and what Forman tries to make up with splash and verve fails to evoke potent nostalgia.” The movie, in its freeform-yet-predictable plot-line, with its too-cute set pieces, and with its heavy-handed moralizing, struck all the wrong notes (fortunately Forman, who had soared with “Cuckoo’s Nest” before shooting “Hair,” redeemed himself to theater lovers a few years later, with “Amadaeus”). Perhaps the best thing about the Delcorte production is that it will expose a new generation to the raw energy and passion of the original play. With luck, it will get picked up for a full Broadway treatment. Its message would certainly resonate today, and I for one would gladly pay good money to hear “Initials” sung with “GWB” in the lyrics.

Just found the perfect shirt to wear next time I’m out photowalking (or when I just want to show off to fellow camera geeks).  Source: Insanely Great Tees. Price: $17.

The image on this post was a birthday present from my brother, and it’s certainly a unique one. This ad for the Sony Watchman FD-30A, circa 1985, features none other than yours truly on its simulated screen (you can tell it’s simulated, since it’s a color image, and the FD-30A is a black and white model). How did I end up on the small screen (yes, it’s hard to tell, but trust me, it’s me)? Well, back before marketers got the big idea that they could charge movie companies big bucks to feature their flicks on TV ads, they bought images from stock photo agencies. And my father happened to own one of those agencies. So, for this particular ad, the client chose a picture of me (taken many years earlier, natch), and slapped it up on the ad, giving me some extremely small measure of fame, and the ability to boast, some 22 years later (and nearly 40 years after the actual picture was taken), that I could’ve been a successful child model! Oh, and check the price on the ad. This beauty went for $269 on sale back in ‘85. Adjusting for inflation, that works out to over $500 today. Considering that handheld TVs go for well under $100 today, and $500 can get you a high-end PMP, it’s not surprising that even collectors don’t have a lot of interest in this clunker. Last I checked, you could pick one up for about $30 on eBay. And since those models don’t have my face on them, I’m not about to bid on one. 

Forbes recently declared the Apple TV the “iFlop,” asking the question, “How did the storied Steve Jobs and Apple botch it so badly?” However, despite the low sales figures, constant flow of criticism and even Steve’s relegation of the box to the status of “hobby,” I still think Apple TV is an amazing product—if you accept it for what it is: an affordable, user-friendly tool to bridge the gap between your PC and your TV. Here’s why I like the Apple TV, and now use it far more than my DVD player (and even the non-HD programming on my cable box):

1. It’s cheap. No, not cheap like a $50 DVD player. But at $249 for a refurb of the 40GB version, it’s cheaper than some of the other boxes Forbes raves about, like the $399 Vudu. It’s even cheaper than some popular audio-only options, like the Squeezebox or Roku Radio.
2. It works. I’ve tried other devices designed to stream music, photos and video from my PC to my TV, and none have worked as well as the Apple TV. Getting photos on is a breeze, syncing with iTunes is effortless, and adding videos is a no-brainer. Apple’s trademark ease-of-use translates well to the living room, where you’d rather kick back and relax than dig in and hack.
3. It’s hackable. Of course, when you do want to dig in and hack, it’s great to know that you can. There are hacks to do everything from turn the Apple TV into a full-fledged (though underpowered) Mac, to open it up to just about every video format. The first Apple TV hacks are what convinced me to take it seriously as a platform, and I wouldn’t have bought one otherwise.
4. It can play DVD video. While Forbes and others carp about the limited amount of programming available via iTunes, I don’t really care about that, since I have plenty of other sources for video in my own DVD collection. Years ago, I ripped all of my CDs to digital files and banished the discs themselves to the basement. I’ve always wanted to do the same with my DVDs, but was held back by not having an easy way to get the files to play in the living room. Apple TV solves that problem. Even without hacking the actual box, ripping DVDs to Apple TV-supported formats is fairly simple, thanks to good ol’ DVD Jon, and the dozens of free and low-priced programs that can copy DVDs. And ripped DVDs can be saved at higher resolutions than those supported in the vids for sale in the iTunes store.
5. It does YouTube. Forbes dings Apple for not including the Tube out of the gate, and I have to agree. I didn’t buy mine until Apple added it (and the refurbs hit the market). Now that it’s there, though, it’s one of my favorite features. Sure low-res YouTube videos look even worse on my 42-inch plasma than they do on my 19-inch desktop LCD, but that’s not the point, is it? The sheer volume and variety is what keeps me coming back to YouTube, and so far Apple and Google have done a pretty good job of porting videos from Flash to H.264.

No, Apple TV isn’t perfect. The 40GB model is way too small (though you can upgrade that if you’re willing to do a little hacking). It doesn’t stream Internet radio (at least without hacks). And Unbox-style rentals would be nice. But it does everything it claims to do, and does it simply, cheaply and elegantly. And for my living room, that’s enough.

A friend recently asked me what was so great about my 50mm f1.7 prime lens. In response, I sent her this picture, along with a few others. I’m far from a great (or even very good) photographer, but I have to say that I get better shots with this lens than any other I own (not that I own all that many). Someday, I’ll splurge and upgrade to a 1.4, but for now, this sub-$100 lens is my fave, and rarely leaves my camera.

I would have expected better from Bed, Bath & Beyond, but the company seems to have sent out an opt-in email pitch this week with the subject line “Keep your family safe,” and the image above. You can view the full ad here. I’m not entirely sure when BBB started circulating the ad; a friend of mine received it today, with a 9/13 dateline. However, the image files are in a directory called 070911, which makes the intent pretty clear as far as I’m concerned. And waiting two days to ship it out doesn’t really change that.

Yesterday, I mentioned that reading the daily “Portraits of Grief” in The New York Times became almost a religious ritual to me in the days after 9/11. I wasn’t exaggerating. There were days when I gave the rest of the paper no more than a cursory glance, but pored over those long pages of pictures as if my own life depended on it. Call it survivors guilt, morbid curiosity or whatever, but I somehow felt that I needed to connect to the victims in some way, and that this was the best way to do it. One thing I never thought about was how those pictures came to appear in the paper each day; in keeping with the whole religious idea, I suppose I thought it irrelevant. As far as I was concerned, they might have been conjured from whole cloth on the spot. Now, after six years, I am interested, and was fascinated to read yesterday’s blog entry by The Times’ Glenn Collins, who authored many of those profiles. It’s a touching tale of journalistic detachment—a required trait if you’re going to call families the day after they’ve lost their loved ones— breaking down in the face of shared tragedy:

Once I descended from the newsroom to the lobby of The Times to pick up the photograph of a victim, Paul Benedetti, from his wife, Alessandra. She was there with her mother, as well as her husband’s mother. They handed me the picture. Then they spontaneously hugged me. All three of us held one another, crying.

It’s also something of a revelation to me. As it turns out, I wasn’t alone in my near-obsessive reading of the Portraits. As Collins points out:

As the months went on, some readers told me that the Portraits of Grief were too painful to read. Some said that they always found themselves crying. So they made a vow, every day, to read just one portrait.

But then they couldn’t stop from reading another.

And then another.

And soon, once again, they would read the whole page, and find themselves crying.

Six years later, that’s one thing that hasn’t changed.

The fact that today’s 9/11 anniversary is the first on a Tuesday may not mean much to most people. But, for me, it serves as a reminder that 9/11 means something very different to those of us who were living in New York at the time than it does to the rest of the country. The fact that 9/11 was a Tuesday, and more specifically, the second Tuesday in September, meant that it was primary day in New York. That meant that I was on my way to work from my polling place as the day’s horrific events unfolded.  It also meant that at least some people who might have otherwise been at work in the World Trade Center that morning were late for work as they returned from the polls. For me, and for many others who saw the plume of smoke that lingered over the city for days, who smelled the acrid aroma of that smoke for weeks, who walked past the Missing posters daily, 9/11 was a local event. It wasn’t about Afghanistan, or Iraq, or the “War on Terror.” It was about an attack on our city. On our home. My memories of the immediate post-9/11 period have little to do with President Bush, Al Qaeda or Congress. What I do remember is wandering a crowded city, unsure how to respond, as shell-shocked survivors struggled uptown from Ground Zero. I remember seeing the first fighter plane soar over the city at midday, and feeling my initial fear turn to relief as I realized that it was one of ours. And glancing around at my fellow New Yorkers, who had all craned their necks to look at the jet in unison, and had looked back down with the same wary look of relief.

To this day, I still think of 9/11 primarily as an attack New York. Yes, I know that the Pentagon was also attacked, and that United 93 was intended to strike another Washington target (though many of its brave passengers hailed from the New York area). As a New Yorker, I read the daily profiles of victims in The New York Times with almost religious commitment. As a New Yorker, I was reminded of 9/11 every day for years, whether it was by seeing what I still think of as a hole in the sky on a daily basis, or by taking the PATH train once its downtown station was reopened, and having to watch tourists pose for pictures next to the sign defiantly defining the station’s location: World Trade Center. And as a New Yorker, I can’t help but think of the firefighters who died recently in the former Deutsche Bank building as the latest victims of the September 11th attacks. Six years later, 9/11 remains a painful wound in New York, and that’s unlikely to change anytime soon.